HO Scale - What's On Your Workbench?

What material did you use for the roof? Love the inconsistency.

 

Nice work on the Tichy Hoppers. I have 6 of them I'm working on

 

Nicely done Jim. The marker lights are neat!

 

Wow! Just wow! That caboose is awesome!!! I used a piece of lite grit sandpaper to simulate the tar and gravel roof of certain building. JMS

 

Thanks Dale! I try to weather all my cars and locos. Some heavy, some light. Some cars I will weather one side heavy with graffiti, and light weather with no graffiti on the other side. This way, depending on how I run the cars, it is like having two cars for the price of one. My card system is fairly simple. I use index cars. The cards have the car road name and number, type of car and length. Written at the bottom is a "sort of" waybill. E.G.- Cumberland(Staging Yard off layout), Bayard Yard(Main Yard on my layout), The industry it goes to with track number and spot number, Bayard Yard. Then it repeats itself as the car will go back to Cumberland. Each car has more than one card... that way the car can travel to different industries. This is how I operate when I run my layout how it was intended... as CSX Thomas Sub. However, when I get bored with just running a branch line, I run my layout like CSX Ohio River Sub. This way, on end of the staging yard is Cumberland, MD and the other side is Huntington, WV. Bayard Yard becomes Brooklyn Jct, WV. When I run this way, I have a general freight train running in each direction making drop offs and pick ups at Brooklyn Jct. (Q316/Q317 on CSX). When I run this way, I use the red "A" and a blue "B" next to the Cumberland line on the card. The "A" stands for Cumberland, MD and the "B" stands for Huntington, WV. This way I have to make sure the car going out goes to the right place! It added another dimension to operating a small layout(8ft x 17ft). Well, this was longer than I thought it would be! LOL! Sorry for running off track(if you will excuse the pun)! JMS

 

Pat I hope you have not started on them yet, the instructions if followed make it next to impossible to install the air reservoir and piping if your attach the ends (as the instructions state) prior to installing all the brake gear. So I install the underframe, then all the brake gear then I glue the ends on (and they are very fragile, ask me how I know!!!). You can then follow the instructions as listed.

I still have 7 of the Anderson's Cars and 6 of the Panel Side cars that will be done in Wabash as both of those cars ran behind my house in Toledo.





As completed and painted for the Anderson's

Rick J

 

I'm well past that part on all 6. I'm part way through adding all of the hopper doors right now.

I glued the ends onto the body first, then installed all brake gear (and extra tubing that I bent myself from brass). I painted the underframe before I installed them to the body, this made sure I had all of the brake equipment painted on all sides. Assembly of the detailed underframe to the body was relatively smooth.

If I could go back and do it again, I would have installed the grabs before the installation of the carbody ends.

 

I bought this engine new in oh, 1965 or 1966. Ran okay....installed a Menzies Machine Shop driveshaft kit in it back then.
College, TET offensive, six years on boats, family, work...got it out of storage oh, 6 years ago.
The Zamac tender floor/frame was exploded. Just hopeless.
The motor was in the tender, and the gear reduction below it, with the frame forming the gearbox...which was no longer usable.
I obtained a NWSL gearbox of proper offset to keep the driveshaft near the cab deck, made a new frame/floor from brass, siliconed a new flat side Sagami (had a couple) to the floor in the correct place for the driveshaft to fit.
Ran it and it about shook itself off the track.
Seems family members had used it while I was gone, and the setscrews went missing...so they stuck 1/2" long 2-56 screws in. While this worked with the very high axle gearing (gear reduction in tender),the higher speeds of proper axle gears caused a serious imbalance. Went down and bought some 2-56 setscrews, and it is smoother, quieter and possibly more powerful than it ever was new.
One of those projects you just want to do to prove to yourself you can still do it.
Dave

 

Yup. Silly engine..so obviously NOT US prototype, down to the oval front cab windows...but you do what you can with them.
I always thought the provided road number was....creative.
Dave

 

Hi John,

I am finishing up on my car cards and waybills now. The Port of Catoosa Railroad occupys one wall and part of another in my garage. Total length is about 16 feet. I am getting ready to add another 8 feet to represent the BNSF Tiger switch that access the port. From the east the BNSF brings cars in to the port. They also connect to the SKOL at Owasso OK. I have 6 locations to switch. Thrugh the 6 points I have plenty of switching to do. I am limiting train lengths to 8 cars. I use a random method of choosing cars by rolling a pair of dice I made up with car types. Once I roll I will build the train and go from there.

Outbound traffic can go either east or west, inbound is the same. I'm working through it now. I'll post up some things on it when I get started. Thank you for sharing what you are doing.

 

Same here, please advise. M

 

I went with the MicroMark starter set, it has 4 card boxes and 100 each of the car cards, 4 destination way bills, a pad of bad order slips (which I did use) and locomotive cards. The price was decent, I actually ordered 2 more boxes to mount on the fascia board and another pad of way bills. I completed almost 95% of my car cards and way bills this afternoon.

I loaded 8 cars onto the layout at various set-outs this evening. I have the following industries to switch:
Gavilán Grain- West Complex, it get winter wheat and the odd box car now and then.
Hughes Lumbe- CB Flats, Bulkhead Flats, Plywood Box, Box Cars
Team track- Tanks, Box Cars, Flats
HARSCO Wharehouse- Box Cars
Word Industries- Steel , also gets coils, roll bar stock, for themselves and a couple other industry.
Terra Nitrogen- ships liquid nitrogen fertilizer, get the odd Tank and Box Cars

I used my trusty dice to choose the cars, all of them went to stop 1 on the way bills. Since those will switch out as their first move I went ahead and changed the way bills to stop 2. They have not left their start positions yet.

As out bound cars, these will either go east to BNSF at Catoosa OK (Tiger Switch) or West to SKOL AT Owasso OK.

Cars at Tiger will either get classified by the road switcher crew to west to Tulsa or east to Joplin MO and beyond. Those going west to SKOL can go into north Tulsa on that road or go north into Kansas depending on the way bills.

I set up for operation tonight by rolling for 6 more inbound cars, by chance they are all coming in from BNSF. I listed those on my switch list to deliver. I also rolled for 6 outbound cars to pick up by the POC crew. I got cars going out both east and west through both railroads. I listed those on the switch list to pick up.

I am going to add 2 more cars to industry before I start making a total of 10 cars on industry points when I start, I think that should add some interest to the operations. I may have to do some moving cars as I deliver and pick-up cars.

I plan to have my first ops session tomorrow if I can, hopefully if I did my waybills right things should be able to keep moving.

I made my own company switch list paper for the Port of Catoosa Railroad, it features the Port logo and has spaces for stop number, car identification, cargo, destination, remarks and time spotted. I can use the form for both spotting and picking up cars.

That was long!!!!! LOL I'll let you all know how it went.

Have a good evening guys!
Dale

 

I've heard of it. I think I've guest operated using switch lists generated by it. They worked pretty good. Unfortunately, I have a windows based house! How long did it take you to set up the program to work with your layout?